Elemental analysis in a V-Ti-C alloy using electron energy loss spectroscopy
There has been considerable interest in the recent past concerning the application of refractory metal-interstitial systems as high temperature materials. it is important to understand the behavior of the interstitial component, and thus the determination of precipitation processes has been an area of study. in addition to making observations in simple binary systems, there is a need to characterize the changes that occur when other substitutional alloying elements are added. recently, bruemmer has studied the precipitation of carbides in a v-8Ti-c alloy over a range of temperatures. it is particularly interesting to characterize the carbides that precipitate at temperatures when the ti can diffuse rapidly (e.g. 1000°c), and determine not only the structure of the carbide but also perform microchemistry on as fine a scale as possible using analytical electron microscopy. bruemmer used a scanning transmission electron microscope (stem) (jeol jsem 200) coupled with an ortec energy dispersive x-ray analyzer to make measurements of the v:ti ratio in the carbide.